


Schism

by Rotpeach



Series: Goretober 2016 [2]
Category: Boyfriend to Death (Visual Novel)
Genre: Amputation, Goretober 2016, Other, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 19:24:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8222129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rotpeach/pseuds/Rotpeach
Summary: You are thinking of simple things.





	

**Author's Note:**

> for goretober day 4 prompt, "Amputation"

You are thinking of simple things—

A hot shower, a soft bed, the voices of close friends.  

Things you take for granted until you talk to the wrong stranger at a bar and wake up in his basement with your wrists bound and your head pounding, his smile looming over you even as you cry and scream and beg and plead and nothing ever changes.  And when another day draws to a close, he turns out the lights and leaves you in darkness with the cheerful promise that he’s got a surprise for you in the morning, and the moment his footsteps reach the top of the stairs and the light beyond fades with the closing of the door, you know you have to leave.

And you’re scared, of course, but you try to distract yourself with thoughts of simple things—sunsets, chocolate-chip cookies, board games—and do the best you can, tug at the loosening ropes until you slip free, wait until your head stops spinning, take the stairs one shaky step at a time and grope blindly in the darkness for the door.  There’s nothing but forest beyond his back porch, but you run anyway, you run for the trees and you think of simple things.

That’s when something clamps down on your ankle with jagged teeth and an unrelenting grip and you go down shrieking.  A bed of dry leaves crinkles beneath you as you shakily climb to your knees, pain shooting through your leg, and you look back to find a bear trap with its metal jaws closed around your foot, blood staining your clothes and dripping along the forest floor.  

You hear a twig snap somewhere close by, steady footsteps approaching from the direction of the house, and you already know who it is, your heart sinks and tears burn at the corners of your eyes, but you still slowly twist your body around to face him because you’re even more afraid to look away.

Strade stands over you with a tranquil smile, a large, serrated knife in one hand, and you feel like an animal in a snare, like death is leisurely making its way over knowing you have nowhere to go.  A rabbit with a broken leg watching the wolf creep closer.  

“Where are you going?” he asks, “There’s no one around for miles.”

You inhale shakily.

He chuckles, eyes narrowing.  “You weren’t trying to run away, were you?”  

You breathe in and try to think of something to say, but your throat seizes up in panic when he kneels next to you, examining your leg with amused curiosity and a hint of that false sympathy that you see from time to time just before he twists the knife in the wound or laughs at the hope in your eyes.  “This sure looks painful,” he says.

You watch his face carefully, trying to figure out what he’s going to do, and only realize when it’s too late that your lack of a response has angered him.  By the time he’s started to scowl, he’s already reaching for the trap, tugging at the metal rings and shredding more flesh and muscle.  You scramble to grip his wrist and stop him but lose your balance and fall back on the forest floor.  It’s like nothing has changed; again, he looms over you, smiling eerily.  “You want me to help you out, right?” he asks.

You start to tremble because that can’t be what he means, it’s never what he means.  Everything Strade says is childish double-speak, thinly-veiled intentions visible in his eyes and the way his fingers twitch excitedly at his sides, and yet you know that “no” is the wrong answer, that he’ll just continue to poke and prod at you until you give in.  

His smile falls and he again reaches for the bear trap, and you hurriedly cry out, “Y-yes!”

“Okay,” he says, but he still looks irritated, “But even if I do, how do I know you won’t just run away again?”  He shifts to sit on your chest and presses his entire weight against you, making you struggle to breathe.  “What’s stopping you from doing the same thing tomorrow night?” he asks, and you realize by the pause that follows that he actually expects you to answer.  “You see what I’m saying?  That’s pretty upsetting since I thought you’d warmed up to me.  You don’t fight back as much as before.”  The smile he gives you now is a little different, a little crooked, something dark lurking in the corners.  “I thought you were starting to like it.”  

You’re suddenly aware of the knife again when it flashes in the low light of the half-moon above.  He toys with it between his fingers and watches the light bounce off of it, smiling absently.  

“You know what?” he says, “Never mind.  Don’t worry about it.  I just had an idea.”  

His weight lifts for just a moment as he turns himself to face the other direction, but you realize what he’s doing just as he takes ahold of the leg caught in the trap, fingers digging into your skin, the knife disappearing out of your line of sight.

“Wait,” you say frantically, “Wait, please, don’t—!”

He doesn’t even hesitate.  The knife sinks into your flesh and drags through muscle and tendons, and your body flails and convulses as you try to buck him off of you, screams tearing from your throat.  But Strade is stronger than you; he easily pins your lower body with his own and ignores your ineffectual scratching at his back to focus on your leg, sawing his way down through every layer, scraping against bone and spraying blood on the grass.  

You try

(you can feel the serrated edge of the knife catching on your skin with every motion he makes every twist of his wrist and turn of his hand every shuddering breath that tells you he is enjoying this)

to think

(it’s an agony unlike anything you’ve felt before it’s hot like splashing boiling water on your arm or accidentally touching a burner on the stove when it’s turned up all the way or sticking your arm in a bonfire but not like that at all because you would pull yourself away if it were any of those things you would laugh at the dumb thing you’d just done and get on with your life but this is taking _forever_ )

of simple things

(Strade is making noises, he’s grunting and groaning and squirming on top of you pressing his lower body into you panting with exertion and excitement and laughing, he’s _laughing_ )

but nothing comes to mind.

When it’s finally over, you feel a terrible ache in your lower leg and Strade lets something slump to the forest floor, something that falls like dead weight and makes the chain of the bear trap rattle.  You stare up at the night sky through your vision blurred with tears, throat sore, clutching handfuls of dead leaves.  Strade gets off of you and stands up, wiping his hands off on his jeans and smearing blood all over them.  “It’s a start,” he muses, “That’ll slow you down, at least.”

When he bends to pick you up, you flinch.  If he notices, he doesn’t say anything.  Strade lifts you in his arms and carries you back to the house, and you look back over his shoulder at the forest, at the treeline, at a bloodied bear trap and something mangled and fleshy sticking out of the grass.  “Come on,” he coos, “Let’s get you cleaned up.”  He chuckles as he rubs your back with one hand as though trying to soothe you. “Then we can cut the other one off.”  

A hot shower.

A soft bed.

The voices of close friends.

You think that, just maybe, you would have rather he left you out in the woods with your simple things, left you there to bleed out and die and imagine that you’re lying in bed at home, so you could have at least pretended that everything was going to be okay.


End file.
